The present invention relates to an apparatus for driving in particular railway vehicles with a rotor device of an induction machine, a shaft, a transmission device, and a coupling device between the rotor device and the shaft.
Drives for railway vehicles normally include an electric motor and a transmission for driving an axle or a wheel of the railway vehicle. The drives are constantly exposed to high loads as a result of vibration and shock so that the support of the drives as well as the support of the single components of the drives themselves is of great importance.
In general, drives for electric motor vehicles, in particular nose-suspended drives and fully spring-suspended drives, are designed with cantilevered pinion, externally supported pinion or pinion supported on two bearings. Drives for railway vehicles, in particular nose-suspended drives, exposed to high loads due to vibration and shock are suitably configured with a transmission pinion which is supported on two bearings, as is the case in the Adtranz locomotive BR 145/185, for example. Fully spring-suspended drives, like Gealaif drives, may be equipped with this type of pinion support for maintenance reasons.
Nose-suspended drives and fully spring-suspended drives involve each a rigid connection of the transmission with the motor. Therefore, a coupling has to be provided between the rotor of the driving motor and the double supported transmission pinion. This coupling has to compensate an angular offset and an axial offset, caused by tolerances during manufacture or loads due to vibration and shock. Furthermore, a coupling is required to maintain the static definition of the triple support of the rotor of the driving motor with the transmission pinion. Hereby, diaphragm clutches or disc clutches with stack of sheets are typically used. These clutches are, however, expensive, require large installation space and, as a consequence of their elastic buckling strength, adversely affect the support. Furthermore, they have the drawback that during idling, there is no load on one bearing so that the bearing may be damaged. Moreover, such clutches can be installed only at great labor.
Patent publication DE 196 02 119 C1 describes in this context a drive which includes a spring-supported motor with internal rotor and a stator which is secured to the chassis and supported by a fixed axle via a primary spring. The rotor of the motor transmits hereby its torque via a coupling device and a transmission to the drive wheel, whereby the motor is provided on one side of the drive wheel and the transmission is provided on the other side of the drive wheel. An angularly yielding and axially yielding clutch or coupling device, in particular a curved teeth coupling with a coupling shaft, is connected to a transmission shaft for transferring a torque. Manufacture and assembly of such drives is however very complicated.